Showing papers by "Barend F.N. Erasmus published in 2021"

Contrasting capabilities of two ungulate species to cope with extremes of aridity.

Abstract: Southern Africa is expected to experience increased frequency and intensity of droughts through climate change, which will adversely affect mammalian herbivores. Using bio-loggers, we tested the expectation that wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), a grazer with high water-dependence, would be more sensitive to drought conditions than the arid-adapted gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazella). The study, conducted in the Kalahari, encompassed two hot-dry seasons with similar ambient temperatures but differing rainfall patterns during the preceding wet season. In the drier year both ungulates selected similar cooler microclimates, but wildebeest travelled larger distances than gemsbok, presumably in search of water. Body temperatures in both species reached lower daily minimums and higher daily maximums in the drier season but daily fluctuations were wider in wildebeest than in gemsbok. Lower daily minimum body temperatures displayed by wildebeest suggest that wildebeest were under greater nutritional stress than gemsbok. Moving large distances when water is scarce may have compromised the energy balance of the water dependent wildebeest, a trade-off likely to be exacerbated with future climate change.

Scholarship on urban Africa’s water crisis narratives: the state of the art

Abstract: Water crises present a global water governance challenge. To date, scholarship has tended to focus on technological and policy-based solutions, while ignoring the influence of narratives on public buy-in during such crises. Africa is expected to become hotter and drier in future, while its cities experience high levels of informal population growth and inequality. These factors combine to make African cities particularly vulnerable to times of water stress. The aim in this paper is to investigate the state of the ‘art’ on narratives framing domestic water use in African cities during periods of acute water stress and ‘crises’, using a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed academic journal articles. The findings revealed a small population of recently published papers that engage critically with state-generated narratives framing the crisis, limited to case studies on Cape Town and Windhoek. We recommend, however, a greater critical engagement with the anti-establishment narratives that can flourish during periods of acute water stress, and tend to be inflammatory and divisive in nature.